Even if we believe in certain unspoken art criticism criteria that are involuntary but formed and informed by extended looking, nothing can be proved. We can always be wrong.
Essays
Posted inArt
Not So Funny Art-World Gossip
When I had to do one of the most difficult things in my Artillery career, I felt like I made a huge mistake: I fired my gossip columnist, Mitchell Mulholland.
Posted inArt
Hey, Nobody’s Perfect!
I’ve never read something by one of my peers and thought ‘s/he’s mistaken!’ Although I have often disagreed. Whose mistake is that? It’s not the writer’s.
Posted inBooks
Mary Cassatt’s Independent, Feminist Spirit
“If the world is to be saved, it will be the women who save it,” said the American Impressionist, who led a headstrong life as a woman abroad.
Posted inArt
The Lives of the Art Museum
Like cabinets of curiosities from the old regime, art museums often display plunder.
Posted inArt
How the Pandemic Has Highlighted a Crisis in Contemporary Museums
In researching three Indiana institutions, it is clear that the lockdown has exacerbated trends in the museum field such as a lack of relevance to the general public and increasing reliance on private philanthropy.
Posted inArt
Turning to Art for Spiritual Sustenance
“A lot of people have been turning to art, needing space to process,” says the artist Edgar Fabián Frías, who, along with Hayley Barker, Julie Weitz, and Patrisse Cullors, has been discussing their art as spiritual practice.
Posted inArt
In America’s “First Suburban Chinatown,” Asian Americans Have Negotiated Cultural Representation
In the San Gabriel Valley, home to the largest concentration of Asian Americans, cultural landmarks tell a story of the formation of a collective cultural identity.
Posted inArt
‘‘We Paid For This Town”: The Legacy of Chicanx Punk in LA
In the 1970s and ’80s, the Bags, Vaginal Davis, Nervous Gender, and Los Illegals used music and performance to express their dissent of racism and gender violence, imagining punk as a possible utopia.
Posted inArt
The Art World We Have Lost
Loren Munk’s “SOHO Map” offers a visual record of a densely peopled art world.
Posted inFilm
Another Asian American Actor’s Not-So-Hollywood Ending
To be Chinese in Hollywood meant that your name didn’t matter — no one in the audience would remember you or send you a fan letter.
Posted inArt
An Ode to the Raised Fist Emoji
The international gesture has almost always signified some variation of solidarity and power to the people.
